Renault makes electric cars look easy

You can’t come back from a day spent driving three disparate battery-powered Renaults without having your ideas changed quite a bit.
Sure, we’ve known for at least a year about the French company’s determination to be first with a range of pure electric models cars (Renault bosses want four on the market by the end of 2012) but it’s still highly instructive to actually slide your backside behind the wheels of these machines, and feel the actual thrust of their engines.

You can’t come back from a day spent driving three disparate battery-powered Renaults without having your ideas changed quite a bit.

Sure, we’ve known for at least a year about the French company’s determination to be first with a range of pure electric models cars (Renault bosses want four on the market by the end of 2012) but it’s still highly instructive to actually slide your backside behind the wheels of these machines, and feel the actual thrust of their engines.

First impression? This thing is genuine. We really will be driving cars like this in a few years’ time, and despite what many people think, the fun of driving will still be there. Just modified a bit. Even in this tentative early form the Twizy, Renault’s four-wheeled rollerskate, has terrific steering, a great natural driving position, awesome stability and a general zip about to its character that makes you want to escape the Renault boundaries and stick it briskly up the Champs Elysees.

The bigger cars, Zoe and Fluence, have a smoothness and grace about their low-speed performance that gives their departure from rest the same sort of polish as a Mercedes S-class. And they feel so strong as they accelerate away from rest.

There’s enormous potential here: by the time the industry’s best dynamics experts get to work on what Ford calls the “driving quality” of these cars, they’ll be deeply impressive. My only concern is for the absence of gearchanging, but this kind of thinking hardly makes sense, given that I’ve enjoyed increasingly refined automatics for years, and – right now – I’m having a good time driving a Honda Insight, complete with CVT. Another impression? Strikes me the central job of making a vehicle work with battery-electric power — whether a new design or an adaptation of an existing model — is easy meat for today’s motor industry. At the Renault Technocentre outside Paris, where we were allowed to try Zoe, Twizy and Fluence, nobody bothered to boast about the complexity of their electric powertrains. Compared with conquering the technical intricacies (and labyrinthine regulations) that surround diesel and petrol engine design, it’s child’s play. The scary thing is the infrastructure that’s going to be needed. Renault foresees worldwide networks of fast-charging stations and ‘Quickdrop’ battery exchange facilities (which, it says, will look rather like roadside car washes). It must all be do-able, I suppose, because by the ‘20s we managed to cover the Western world with petrol filling stations fast enough for Henry Ford to build two million Model Ts a year.

But it still looks daunting, given the convergence that’s going to be needed among dozens of manufacturers concerning voltages, plug sizes, battery specifications, charging methods, cruising ranges and many, many more intricate details. Maybe I’m just being defeatist. But I’m increasingly sure that designing, building and driving these electric cars is going to be the easy bit.

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It will take a big car market or big car production country to get elec working.Most engine tech came down from the lux cars but elec drivetrains are not suited to big cars due to weight. Perhaps if we see Governments themselves ordering just hybrid/elec cars then that market will generate the sales needed to push the designs faster and beyond carshow status. France has invested alot in nuclear and all that power goes to waste overnight.Also France has no oil reserves so their socialist economy would suffer alot if fuel costs rised rapidly. Note they have HSRail and we all seem to be impressed.

I too like the concept of electirc vehicles, and have been studying them for many years. A local power station used to use electric mini buses for visitors' guided tours to great effect. They had quite a slow top speed, but they reached it very quickly!

I have also studied various websites where people have converted every-day cars, vans & pick-ups to electric power. Most retained the manual gearbox, installing the elctric motor in place of the petrol/diesel engine, and even used the original flywheel/clutch arrangement too! I suppose this allows a smaller motor to be used?

The biggest draw back with these cars is their somewhat limited range on a single charge, but they all have one thing in common....they are all proud of their conversions and are really happy to talk about them!

I do wonder whether Steve might have a point about the lack of gears. As the electric motors are revving up to 13,000rpm in some prototypes - with the requisite high power drain this will bring - I wonder whether the removal of gears owing to the abundance of torque is the right approach. You could instead install longer gear ratios which a petrol engine might struggle with, but which an electric motor could easily adopt and thereby increase range by a significant amount. The only issue I can see is working out how to ensure smooth enough gearchanges owing to the seamless delivery that ordinary bloke points out. Perhaps something like VW's DSG box would be suitable or similar sequential boxes.

The real question, though, is have I missed something blindingly obvious which would stop this working?

These cars are definitely indicative of the way forward. If politicians can resist the temptation to meddle (not much hope of that in reality) then the manufacturers and energy suppliers should be allowed to get on with it and work out the best way of setting up the infrastructure and technology behind the battery packs etc. I'm surprised to read Steve say that he misses the gearchange aspect of driving - the CVT is the way forward with all its benefits of smooth fast take-up of power, its particularly suited to the seamless delivery of electric power. Well done Renault, I say.

Given that there's nothing new under the sun, is anyone looking into the potential of clockwork as a green, infinitely re-usable slow-release hybrid energy source? Mainspring lying flat under the floor (= low c of g = good handling), get a wind-up on garage forecourts or do it yourself at home, auto-engagement of clockwork drive once you've reached motorway cruising speed. Different spring densities/tensions for sports, touring etc. Cassette-style installation for easy spring switchovers.

Human ingenuity if given the chance knows no bounds. What will slow this development will be (not necessarily in this order)

1. Politicians and Bureaucrats who will want regulations and taxes.

2. The attitude expressed by Steve (and others) above where he says perhaps he's defeatist. Yep, that's right always think of the reasons why you shouldn't do something.

3. Pressure groups such as the Oil companies and Environmentalists - the former because it will affect their revenue and latter because they are Luddites.

What we need to understand is that in 50 years time the World will be a very different place - just compare our world with that which was reported in say 1900. There will be technological advances beyond our wildest dreams and motoring/travelling will be just another area in which one will see this. I'll not be here to see it but I do know that time only goes forwards and that means enormous changes to come (the rate of change appears to my old brain to be getting faster and faster|).